END THIS TYRANNY

Tyranny is defined in the Merriam Webster Dictionary as:  cruel and unfair treatment by people with power over others; a government in which all power belongs to one person.  Escaping the tyranny of a monarch was the reason America was founded.  Our Declaration of Independence from another country, England, states: "That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."  Our forefathers fought a war to earn America's freedom from tyranny.

Our Founding Fathers wanted to be sure that America would remain the country of free people.  To that end, they provided a legal, peaceful method within our Constitution to strip an internal tyrant of power.  It is the tool of Impeachment defined in the Constitution, Article II, Section 4:  "The President, Vice President and all Civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."  The House of Representatives issues the impeachment charges and the Senate conducts the trial.

Two American Presidents have been impeached.  Andrew Johnson, the 17th President, was impeached on grounds of disregarding the Tenure of Office Act of 1867.  It prohibited a President from dismissing office holders without the Senate's approval.  He was impeached by the House of Representatives for trying to throw Edwin Stanton, the Secretary of War, out of office.  The Senate was one vote short of the two-thirds majority needed to convict him and he was acquitted May 26, 1868.  Political maneuvering is cited as the reason there was not a conviction.

William J. Clinton, the 42nd President, was the second impeached.  He was charged with four crimes and impeached in the House of Representatives on two of those, grand jury perjury and obstruction of justice.  Again, the Senate failed to secure the two-thirds majority needed to convict and he was acquitted February 12, 1999.  Again, political maneuvering is cited as the reason there was not a conviction.

Also, Richard Nixon, the 37th President, had three articles of impeachment issued by the House of Representatives on July 20, 1974.  Nixon resigned his office on August 9, 1974, before the House voted to impeach him.

In all three instances, the Constitution did its job.  What the Founding Fathers did not foresee was that people elected to represent the citizens would thwart our country's guiding document, the Constitution, for personal or party gains.  America has evolved into two parties, the Democrats and the Republicans.  For too many of those elected to our Congress, the desire to keep their individual power and to maintain their party's control over spending our tax dollars is more important than ensuring that the Constitution is enforced.

Another safeguard in the Constitution to protect us against tyranny is the assignment of specific powers to three separate branches of the Federal Government, the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches.  No branch may infringe on the powers of the others.  By not taking the appropriate action, impeaching Obama, the Congress has subjected us to having a Tyrant, not a President, heading the Executive branch of the Federal government.

In August, 2013, Business Daily listed several laws Obama has broken.  He chooses what laws do and don't suit his needs and ignores the latter.  He is usurping the law-making power the Constitution gives solely to the Legislative branch of the Federal government, the Congress.

Obama circumvented the immigration law, deciding not to deport illegal immigrants under the age of 30.  He unilaterally has and continues to change Obamacare.  These are only two examples on a very long list.  After Congress enacts a bill and the President signs it, it is the law of the land.  It can not be changed arbitrarily.  Changes are legal only when they are introduced and approved by the Congress as a revocation of or an amendment to the original law.

Business Daily also lists actions Obama has taken that usurp the power the Constitution gives only to the Judicial branch of the Federal government.  This tyrant ignores court decisions.  Re-imposing a moratorium on off-shore drilling after the courts struck down his original moratorium and refusing to remove his appointees to the National Labor Relations Board after those appointments were ruled unconstitutional are only two examples of his illegal actions.

It is time for Congress to follow the rules; it must act and do what the Constitution demands.  Breaking laws and usurping power are not allowable actions for any President.  It is time to impeach and to try the forty-fourth President, Barack Obama.  This tyrant must be stopped in order to preserve America as it was intended to be, a country of free people without a tyrant or a central power controlling her citizens.

This time, politics can not be allowed to over-ride the Constitution.  Those in Congress who value their individual power and their party's control over spending our tax dollars more than working for our best interests must be stopped.  Use your voice, your vote, your power as citizens.  Demand that Congress represent our interests by impeaching and convicting the tyrant in the Executive Branch.  Save America from Obama by stripping him of his office.  Return control of America to her citizens.

Unfortunately, Americans face an intentional lack of education in our public-school system to teach our youth how America is governed and their role and responsibility as citizens.  So, citizens must educate themselves.  Read the Constitution.  It is readily available on line or in many libraries.  Before you vote again, prepare to cast an informed vote.  Know what candidates have achieved and what their actions demonstrate about their belief in protecting our individual rights and freedoms.  Research candidates yourself; make your own decisions.  Elect those who will live by their job description as it is defined in our Constitution.  That job is to represent us.

Kathleen M. Dynan
Cape May, New Jersey

Does Our Constitution Matter?

From: John Porter
To: Americans everywhere

What was the purpose of writing a Constitution in the founding of these United States of America, following our separation from England? We must be reminded that before the migration from Europe to this newly discovered land, all people of the civilized world were ruled by Kings. No man or woman, except the rulers, were free to pursue their own happiness. Even the people of the original thirteen established states of this new land were ruled, as a colony, by the King of England.

Then something very profound and monumental took place, Independence was declared and the American Revolution was underway, and a war for the freedom of men to think and act for themselves ensued. A group of men bent on their desire to be free and rule themselves in a land where the government answered to the people and not the people answering to the King and his court, rose up and risked their lives and fortunes in an attempt to end government dictating to, taxing at will, and over regulating the people. Through the shedding of their blood and fortune the American Constitutional Republic was born, an experiment in self government. As you know the opening shot fired in that revolution was called "“the shot heard round the world."” It was so called because it was a rebellion against, not only the King of England, but against mankind being ruled by kings.

Kings and dictatorial leaders "round the world" heard that shot. They heard the shot that proclaimed that men were now in rebellion to being subjects of a government, or king, and willing to challenge it.

We The People of America celebrate on July 4 every year, the marking of American independence from England and its king, a very radical departure from governments which prevailed, "“round the world",” at that time and for thousands of years before. Never before in those thousands of years had the rule of kings ever been challenged. Kings challenged each other, but never had the people challenged the kings and their rule.

Is the United States an exceptional country? Barack Obama has stated publicly that he doesn't think it is. I quote Thomas Sowell, “"You could’ not be more exceptional in the 18th century than to create your fundamental document, the Constitution of the United States, by opening with the momentous words, “We the people."…”

Those three words were a slap in the face to those who thought themselves entitled to rule, and regarded the people as if they were simply human livestock, destined to be herded and shepherded by their betters. Indeed, to this very day, the elite who think that way, and that includes many among those who regard themselves as the educated and enlightened class, as well as the Liberal news media and political messiahs such as Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and their backers, find the Constitution of the United States a real pain because it stands in the way of them imposing their will and their presumptions on the rest of us.

Barack Obama stated in a public interview on T V, "The founders made it very hard to change things as quickly as I want to." He also stated in a public speech, "If congress doesn't do what I think is necessary, I won't wait on them, I'll do it anyway." And again, we all remember him saying in a televised interview, "We're not just going to be waiting for legislation. I've got a pen and I've got a phone. And I can use that pen to sign executive orders." Never before in American history has any president so blatantly and openly shown such disregard and out and out contempt for our Constitution as the rule of law. He just simply ignores it. It is very apparent that his swearing to "uphold and defend" it, upon taking the oath of office, means absolutely nothing to him. I am convinced and fear that Hillary Clinton will be a continuation of the same if she is elected to the presidency.

A campaign was started many years ago by President Woodrow Wilson, and continues today, to undermine and discredit the United States Constitution. Those efforts are headed today by the Progressive Liberals (Socialists) both in our news media and our federal government, and they are led, among others, by Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, George Soros, and the management of the MSNBC news organization.

The managing editor of Time Magazine, Richard Stengle, in an essay he wrote about a year ago is a case in point, where he says, "“If the Constitution was intended to limit the federal government, it certainly doesn't say so."” Mr. Stengle, I would like to direct you to the Tenth Amendment of that document, for apparently you have not read it. It reads, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or the people.”

Our Constitution was designed for the sole purpose of establishing the framework for a Federal Government —and worded to keep the government inside that framework. In other words, the Constitution exists for the purpose of delegating to, and limiting the powers of the Federal Government. Steal away someplace to a quiet spot where you can think without interruption and ask yourself,  “Does the Constitution matter to me?” “If it doesn'’t, then neither does your freedom."

America, we are on a collision course with full blown Socialism.

In November, 2016 the occupant of the presidency, all 435 seats of the U. S. House of Representatives and 1/3 of the U. S. Senate seats will be constitutionally vacated for us to refill. We are in charge of who will occupy these positions. Allow me to suggest, if we do not replace the Progressive Liberal Socialists with men and women who are defenders of our Constitution with it's guarantee of Individual Freedom, we will be responsible for giving people like Hillary Clinton, George Soros, Nancy Pelosi, Bernie Sanders, full power to complete their burning mission to turn this nation into the Socialist States of America. The Constitutional Republic of These United States of America will no longer exist and our Individual Liberty, to make and be responsible for our own decisions, will be gone from our lives forever.

I pray that God bless America and keep us free.

Please feel free to forward to all you wish, in any manner you wish.

Until next time.... and I thank you for listening....I remain your friend in freedom...

John Porter
Harrison, Arkansas

johnporter1939@cox.net

The Neoconservatives: Tyranny's Fifth Column

Nelson Hultberg

 

The term, "Fifth Column," came into popular use in the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s and thereafter as socialism and fascism were sweeping into conflict to take over the nations of the West. It means a group of guerrillas, activists, intellectuals, etc. who work to undermine a nation (or some larger organization) from within. Its activities can be out in the open, or they can be secret.

Today in America, the neoconservative political movement represents a "Fifth Column" for the forces of collectivism. It's intellectuals and activists promote themselves as conservatives who oppose the liberals, but their political philosophy has nothing to do with what is known as American conservatism, which has always stood for a limited Constitutional government and free enterprise. These values are anathema to today's "neoconservatives" in the nation's political, literary, and scholarly circles.

The late, Irving Kristol, editor of The Public Interest, and Norman Podhoretz, editor of Commentary, were the founders of the neoconservative movement in the late 1960s. In their youth during the 1930s and 1940s, they were followers of the communist, Leon Trotsky. Having bought into the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, they saw socialism as an ideal that needed to be spread to the West. While they and their followers subsequently modified the Marxist roots of their ideology in favor of a more gradualist methodology, they always remained adamant supporters of collectivism for America. Are they outright socialists? No, but their policy proposals have always been in favor of massive government welfarism domestically and an aggressive militaristic foreign policy that seeks what is termed "benevolent global hegemony," in which the U.S. military is to be used preemptively to spread democracy throughout the world.

The paradigm that neoconservatives have given their lives to is built upon a centralized mega-state running American society from Washington and also, as much as possible, the rest of the world.

In Irving Kristol's eyes, the laissez-faire vision of the Founders was a "doctrinaire fantasy." Its ideals "make it inadequate...for a political community," he wrote in 1977. In other words, to adhere today to what Jefferson and Madison advocated is anachronistic foolishness. According to Kristol and his fellow neoconservatives, such a view must be phased out of our collective conscience. [1]

Kristol died in 2009, but his worldview dominates all of today's younger neoconservatives. He believed that capitalism and individual rights are dangerous institutions. They must be constantly modified by a powerful state that redistributes wealth whenever necessary to mold market enterprises into an appropriately egalitarian social structure. In the neoconservative mind, freedom, while desirable, is not a primary political value. Machiavelli had the better idea; expediency is the best way to rule. People need to be manipulatively led by statist elites - via open dialogue and democracy if possible, but by deception, coercion and expediency when necessary. [2]

The neoconservatives, thus, represent tyranny's Fifth Column in America. They are deceiving the people into believing that they are genuine conservatives, but like the socialists who were their mentors, they call themselves what they know the people want to hear. These ersatz conservatives have now grown to dominate Washington's think tanks, Wall Street's brokerages and banks, and many major publications and universities. They are highly influential writers, scholars, pundits, publishers, institute heads, bankers, and corporate moguls.

The Serpents

What follows are eight of the more influential neoconservatives in America, past and present. These are not friends of freedom, but enemies. They need to be recognized for who they are, traitors to what America was meant to be. They need to be exposed and attacked as we would attack serpents who are slithering into our back yards to threaten our safety and our families.

Irving Kristol
Considered to be the "godfather of neoconservatism." A powerful liberal writer during the 1950s and 1960s, he had grown disenchanted with the Democratic Party by 1970 and switched to the Republican Party, coining the name "neoconservative" for the band of intellectuals he brought with him. Immensely persuasive in the shaping of the movement.

Norman Podhoretz
One of the major founders with Irving Kristol of neoconservatism in the late 1960s, he served as Editor-in-Chief of Commentary magazine from 1960 to 1995, pouring out a myriad of articles and books on the need to build America into an all-pervasive "collectivist state," but one that respects traditional values instead of the amoral values of liberalism. 


Richard Perle
Called the "Prince of Darkness" because of his extreme hawkish military stands. A member of the Reagan Pentagon, now serves in Washington think-tanks such as the Hudson Institute and the American Enterprise Institute. Vehemently promoted the invasion of Iraq; favors extensive intervention in the Middle East to bring about regime changes.


Paul Wolfowitz
The most hawkish advocate in the Bush administration and the architect of the Bush Doctrine. A fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, he is a former World Bank chief and Pentagon official who was closely involved in the decision to invade Iraq in 2003. He has been back and forth between academia and government for the entirety of his career.


William Kristol
Son of Irving Kristol and editor of the prestigious Weekly Standard, he was the cofounder of PNAC (Project for the New American Century) with Robert Kagan. He is a widely recognized pundit and influential Washington political operative. Director at the Foreign Policy Initiative and member of numerous think-tanks in Washington as well as a Fox News regular.


Robert Kagan
Cofounder with Bill Kristol of the Project for the New American Century, Kagan is a policy pundit and historian based at the Brookings Institution. He serves also as a contributing editor at The New Republic and, thus, personifies the collectivist liberalism that infuses neoconservatism. They are statist ideological brothers.


Frank Gaffney
The director of the hawkish neoconservative Center for Security Policy, Gaffney has been a longtime advocate of interventionist U.S. foreign policies, ever-increasing military budgets, and aggressive attacks upon the Islamic world. A regular on Fox News.


Charles Krauthammer

A writer for The Washington Post, Charles Krauthammer, is considered to be the most influential neoconservative political columnist in America. He is a Pulitzer Prize winner, Fox News talking head, and was a weekly panelist on the PBS show, Inside Washington, From 1990 to 2013.

There are, of course, many other prominent neoconservatives than just these eight. Hundreds of others like Bill Bennett, Elliott Abrams, Joshua Muravchik, James Woolsey, John Bolton, Max Boot, Karl Rove, David Frum, and Condolezza Rice are assiduously working to advance mega-statism throughout America and the world.

Socialist Roots of Neoconservatism

By 1910, socialism had become the new wave of the future in European universities. The Fabians were growing to power in Britain. And numerous socialist intellectuals were emigrating to America to begin subversion of the citadel of capitalism.

One problem, however, confronted the invading intellectuals coming to our shores. The American people were vehemently resistant to socialism. Fabians and Cultural Marxists soon realized that the socialist revolution would never take hold in America as "socialism." They realized they must redefine their revolution and disguise it. Thus between 1910 and 1920 they began to refer to themselves as "progressives," which solved their alienation problem. Americans were willing to listen to "progressive" ideas, but not to "socialist" ideas.

This is classic Marxist strategy: become in name and image whatever will more readily convince potential converts. Retain your fundamental collectivist principles, but change the methods of implementation to fit the situation.

In the years between 1920 and 1940 the original neoconservatives like Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, Daniel Bell, Nathan Glazer, and Sidney Hook were coming of age and developing their worldview. At first openly socialist, they soon adopted the label of "progressive," and eventually began to use the term "liberal" because of it's widespread acceptance in American intellectual circles. Thus socialists became progressives who then became liberals who promoted progressive policies. The intellectual coup d' etat was complete. Tyrannical socialism could now be promoted as something liberal, benign, and progressive.

All intellectuals of the left were now solidified around promoting socialist ideology under the name of "liberalism." Such a strategy became spectacularly successful up through the late 1960s moving America insidiously toward the collectivist ideal of an egalitarian society via massive government coercion. The goal was to bring about "equality of results" in life by leveling down productive people as much as possible to the lowest common denominator. The Marxist vision was making great progress by eroding the individualism that had created and built America.

Unfortunately, the mid-1960s came unglued socially because America's youth went bonkers by adopting a New Left radicalism that shook the politics of liberalism to its core. Counterculture rebellion raged among millions of young people who came home from college to kill their donkey parents ideologically. Stability and sanity collapsed into a heap of drugs, nihilism, and contempt for conventional liberalism. It was at this time that Kristol, Podhoretz, and numerous of their powerhouse liberal colleagues switched to the Republican Party in face of George McGovern's 1972 takeover of the Democratic Party. They cast off the name "liberal" and adopted the name "neoconservative" so as to break totally from what they perceived as the lunatic fringe of New Left liberalism. Thus the neoconservative revolution was born via yet another name change. Socialists who became progressives who became liberals had now become "neoconservatives."

Of course, the fundamental principles of collectivism and mega-statism were not discarded, only the name of liberalism. Ideologically the neoconservatives were still very much collectivists and statists. But the new name gave them a new life in which they felt they could thrive more successfully. Mega-statism with traditional values had always been their political vision; now it could be openly promoted as neoconservatism. It caught on and attracted droves of big league scholars and pundits to join with it, which grew into today's neoconservative hold over Wall Street, the nation's corporate moguls, the Republican Party, and many of Washington's prestigious think-tanks.

The serpents had propagated. The Fifth Column had done its job. Thousands in the media became quite comfortable subscribing to "neo" conservatism and discarded the philosophy of "libertarian" conservatism, which had built the country and was the true conservatism, the true opposition to liberalism. The American people (conservative by nature) fell for the hoax and loyally supported the neoconservative movement, assuming it was what would keep the country free when actually it was working to do just the opposite. It was smuggling America into statism.

Thus both liberals and neoconservatives and their respective political parties - the Democrats and Republicans - are relentlessly moving our country into mega-statism today with full support from our professors, our media, and our people. "Corrupt the money and the language," said Marx. Freedom and capitalism will then fall. Today's neoconservatives are not conservative; they are rabid collectivists. But you won't hear that from the American people. They have been bamboozled.

The only solution to this ideological deception and corruption is to revive the vision of "libertarian conservatism" subscribed to by the Founders. This means a free-market, not a mega-state. It means the protection of equal rights, not the conveyance of special privileges. It means a mind-our-own-business foreign policy, not the pursuit of world hegemony. If the Founders were alive today they would be heaping the same scorn on the "neoconservatives" that they heaped on the Tories and King George. Tyranny is still tyranny whether it calls itself socialism, fascism, liberalism or neoconservatism.


Notes

1. Irving Kristol, "Looking Back on Neo-Conservatism: Notes and Reflections," The American Spectator, November 1977, p. 7.

2. Daniel Shapiro, "The Neoconservatives," Libertarian Review, January-February, 1978.


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Nelson Hultberg is a freelance scholar/writer in Dallas, Texas and the Director of Americans for a Free Republic www.afr.org. A graduate of Beloit College in Wisconsin, his articles have appeared in such publications as The American Conservative, Insight, Liberty, The Freeman, The Social Critic, and The Dallas Morning News, as well as on numerous Internet sites. He is the author of The Golden Mean: Libertarian Politics, Conservative Values. Email: nelshultberg (at) aol.com